As I have now
been here in Ukarumpa now for three full weeks, the first thing that I noticed is
how people from seventeen different countries are working together to seeing
Papua New Guinea empowered by the written Word of God. Each person or family here,
whether aircraft mechanic,
pilot, IT worker, literacy worker, language surveyor, translator, or other type
is supported and sponsored by churches and
individuals in their home countries, who are also committed to this same goal. It
is but a small picture of the many members of the body of Christ working
together, each with different gifts that the Apostle Paul talks about in Romans
12.
But this time
has also given me a chance to look back and reflect on what God has been doing in
my life. We never really get over our grief, but then again we are
never really the same after we have passed through it. The joy that Christ alone
gives, shines through our grief just like the sun shines through the clouds after
a storm, revealing something beautiful.
The other
day I read this poem, from Streams in the
Desert, which beautifully reflects that thought.
“And now my heart and I are sweetly singing–
Singing without the sound of tuneful strings;
Drinking abundant waters in the desert;
Crushed, and yet soaring as on eagle’s wings.”
Singing without the sound of tuneful strings;
Drinking abundant waters in the desert;
Crushed, and yet soaring as on eagle’s wings.”
During this
past year, I have begun to feel God’s comfort and to experience closeness to
and a hunger for God that I had never before known. I began to live in Psalm
42:1, 2 where David said, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God,” and God
began to reveal Himself to me in new and wonderful ways, as I found my soul being
refreshed by the abundant waters in the desert.
Listening to
sermons this past year from Tullian Tchividjian, Scotty Smith, Steve Brown, and
my own pastor Gary Ginn have reintroduced me to the Gospel of God’s inexhaustible
grace and His one-way love toward me. The power of the gospel is just as
necessary and relevant to us after we become Christians as it was before. We
habitually look to someone, or something smaller than Jesus, or even in
addition to Jesus, for the things we crave and need, and none of these things
are ever large enough to fill that void.
But then God,
in His infinite wisdom and mercy, began showing me that because of the finished
work of Jesus on the cross, my identity was not in myself, but was in Him! I
love how in Psalm 66:16 the psalmist responds to the awesome deeds of the Lord,
“Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my
soul.” Rediscovering the Gospel has given me a new freedom—a freedom to be “nothing”
because Jesus is “everything” and all because of the finished work of Christ on
the cross, for me!
I no longer
need to worry about being ordinary, because Jesus was extraordinary for me; I
no longer have to worry about being weak, because Jesus was strong for me; I no
longer need to worry about being a failure, because Jesus succeeded for me. My
name is in Jesus’ name–my reputation is in Jesus’ reputation. What freedom that
brings!
In 1997 with
her first diagnosis of cancer, I marked Psalm 30:5 in my Bible, “Weeping may
tarry for the night but joy comes with the morning.” I again marked that verse
in January 2014, and while there is still sadness in my life, God is beginning
to fulfill that promise, by bringing me unspeakable joy, which can only come in
and through Him.
In Psalm
40:3, King David said “He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our
God.” Amen!
